Optimising pacemaker settings

Surprisingly, dramatic developments in heart failure pacemakers have not been
accompanied by development of optimal ways to tune them in to the ideal
settings to benefit the patient.

In award-winning research as part of his PhD at ICCH, Dr Zachary Whinnett created a
new, quick, cost-effective and highly consistent way to tune new pacemakers to
the ideal settings.

Example of an optimisation map for an individual patient
used to identify their best settings.

‘Mr Wilkins, a patient in a nearby hospital, was terribly disappointed when he had his
heart pacemaker fitted to treat his heart failure. Instead of the prompt and
dramatic benefit he had been hoping for, there was no improvement in his
symptoms. It turned out that the pacemaker had been left at standard
settings (like a radio left at factory settings, and not tuned into a preferred
station). Mr Wilkins was referred to us because we had developed a new
method for fine-tuning pacemaker settings to get the maximum benefit for the
patient and we were able to help him. ICCH is now working to have
this innovative development made available to all patients
with pacemakers throughout the world, to ensure that they
obtain the full benefit of the procedure that they undergo.’

Dr Zachary Whinnett

Dr Andreas Kyriacou has been awarded a Clinical Research
Training Fellowship by the British Heart Foundation for
research at ICCH. Part of this involves following on from
Dr Whinnett’s success, to develop a similarly reliable and
inexpensive method that will consistently fine-tune
patients’ pacemakers.